Frodo and Sam

“Sleep Then, Master. Lay Your Head in My Lap.” Some Thoughts on Sam’s Love For Frodo.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 930-935

In the last post on my blog we watched Frodo shyly, uncertainly, begin to express his feelings regarding Sam. Frodo imagines a father reading the story of his and Sam’s adventures to his child and that child saying to his father:

“And Frodo wouldn’t have got far without Sam, would he, dad?”

It’s the closest that either Frodo or Sam have come to expressing how they feel about each other. Frodo is telling Sam that he needs him and that Sam has come to mean a lot to him. As we saw last time this isn’t a democratic relationship, a partnership of equals. Sam has no problem in calling Frodo, Master. Neither does he feel demeaned in any way in doing so. We have looked at other master-servant relationships in recent weeks, in particular that of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, but in the 20th century two such relationships come immediately to my mind. Dorothy Sayers creation of Lord Peter Wimsey and his servant, Bunter, and P.G Wodehouse’s creation of Bertie Wooster and his servant, Jeeves. In the former case the relationship began in the First World War in which Bunter served as Lord Peter’s batman. The relationship between them remains formal but it is laced with deep mutual respect, trust and considerable affection. Sayers and Tolkien knew one another, Sayers joining the Inklings from time to time and both shared a similar view of society although Sayers was more critical of it as she showed in her story, Gaudy Night, for example. Wodehouse’s wonderful joke in his Jeeves and Wooster stories is that everyone (apart from Bertie himself) is aware that Jeeves possesses a competence that Wooster entirely lacks but Jeeves is more than content to play the game that Wooster is the master and he the servant.

As we have already discussed, the relationship between Frodo and Sam is based upon Tolkien’s memory of his batman in the trenches. In this respect it is closer to the relationship between Peter Wimsey and his servant, Bunter. But I cannot quite imagine a scene in one of Dorothy Sayers stories ending with Lord Peter lying in Bunter’s lap as it does here with Frodo and Sam.

Many of my readers will be aware that some people in the LBGTQ world have claimed the relationship between Frodo and Sam as queer. I confess that I do not understand the various nuances in queer relationships enough to be able to dismiss this assertion completely out of hand. I am also aware, based upon my life as a straight man, that however straightforward any of my friendships have been with women over the years, I have come to practice a certain reserve, a caution, to prevent the crossing of boundaries. I say this because I do not know all the feelings that Sam, in particular, has for Frodo. But of one thing I am sure, and that is that Sam is deeply respectful of boundaries. They have been ingrained in him by his culture since birth. I only say this because I do not want to simply dismiss the deep love that Sam has for Frodo as if it doesn’t matter or even exist. I am only certain that it exists within carefully, even painfully formed boundaries.

There are boundaries in the relationship between Frodo and Sam but there is also deep tenderness, especially on Sam’s part. And Tolkien is not afraid to show this even though he is describing a relationship between two men. Sam will draw upon this tenderness again and again as the two hobbits draw ever closer to Mount Doom and Frodo withdraws ever further from him as the Ring tightens its grip upon Frodo’s heart. Indeed it is probably only this tenderness that will see them through to their goal together.

As I conclude this reflection I need to make a decision. Is the relationship between Frodo and Sam queer or not? I am going to come down on the side of saying that it is not. And the reason why I am going to make this choice is because I believe it is possible to separate tenderness from sexual attraction. From my experience women are much more capable of taking the risk of expressing tenderness without confusing it with romantic attraction than are men. I regard this as a unhappy shortcoming in many men who struggle with both giving and receiving tenderness. I would argue that one of the characters in The Lord of the Rings who will benefit most from Sam’s considerable ability to show tenderness will be Rosie Cotton who will marry him and bear his children. So will those children as well.

Sam brings his tender heart to his marriage to Rosie Cotton.

“Frodo Wouldn’t Have Got Far Without Sam, Would He Dad?” Frodo Thinks About the Place of Sam Gamgee in His Story and About Both of Them in The Great Tale.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 931-935

Frodo and Sam have come a long way since Gandalf unceremoniously pulled Sam by the ear through the study window at Bag End. And they have travelled far since Frodo’s attempt to escape from all his friends across the Anduin to the Emyn Muil after Boromir’s betrayal and his attempt to take the Ring from Frodo by force. At that point in the story Frodo greeted Sam’s heroic effort to catch up with him, risking his life in the waters of the mighty river, with the words:

“Of all the confounded nuisances you are the worst, Sam!”

The road from the breaking of the Fellowship to the place just below the tunnel into Mordor in the pass of Cirith Ungol has only been a few days but during that time the bonds of friendship between Frodo and Sam have begun to grow deep. Frodo takes the opportunity using the gentle game that he and Sam are playing as Sam imagines Frodo as a character in the kind of story that he loved to hear when he was a child to express something of how he has come to feel about him.

“Why, Sam,” he said, “to hear you somehow makes me as merry as if the story was already written. But you’ve left out one of the chief characters: Samwise the stouthearted. ‘I want to hear more about Sam, dad. Why don’t they put in more of his talk, dad? That’s what I like. it makes me laugh. And Frodo wouldn’t have got far without Sam, would he, dad?'”

This short speech displays much of the struggle that men have to say what they really feel. It is the last sentence that gets closest to this for Frodo. “I wouldn’t have got very far without you, Sam.” But this shy expression of feeling is wrapped up in teasing and in all the careful formality of relationships between classes that typified the early twentieth century world that Frodo and Sam live in and which they carry into the pre-modern heroic world of the central narrative of The Lord of the Rings. And in passing we might note here how seemingly effortless this travel between worlds is. We hardly notice that that all this conversation about heroic literature takes place in a lighthearted conversation between an officer and his batman (a servant to an officer in the British military) on the front line during the Great War of 1914-18. Are we in the trenches of that terrible conflict or are we in the story of Beren and Lúthien from the First Age of Arda? In fact we are in both stories but most importantly of all, the heroic tale recounted in The Silmarilion is legitimately brought into the twentieth century conversation and re-enchants it.

Sam is the first to point this out, speaking of the tale of Beren and Lúthien.

“But that’s a long tale, of course, and goes on past the happiness and into grief and beyond it- and the Silmaril went on and came to Eärendil. And why sir, I never thought of it before! We’ve got some of the light of it in that star-glass that the Lady gave you! Why, to think of it, we’re in the same tale still! Its going on. Don’t the great tales never end?”

Some may recall that Bilbo used words very much like this in his despairing cry of, “Don’t adventures ever have an end?” in the hall of fire in Rivendell when he met Frodo there. Both the tragedy and comedy of life come down to each of us from the ancient stories and we must inherit them both. The point is, and Tolkien vividly brings this to life here, is that our lives in modernity are not hermetically sealed against the heroic tales of the past. They still live in us and we in them.

“I Ask You, Sam, Are We Ever Likely to Need Bread Again?” As They Begin The Passage of The Marshes Frodo Thinks of What Lies Ahead.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 809-816

On the day that Frodo and Sam begin the passage of the Dead Marshes guided by a creature that neither of them ever hoped to meet Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli meet Gandalf in the Forest of Fangorn while Merry and Pippin wait for Entmoot to end. Events have overtaken each member of the Fellowship that none of them ever planned for or anticipated and yet plans still have to be made. The three hunters will go with Gandalf to Edoras and then onto war with Saruman while Merry and Pippin will go with the Ents to the destruction of Isengard and Frodo and Sam ponder the journey to Mordor and Mount Doom that still lies ahead of them.

Sam, as always, is the one to think about practical issues. The most pressing one in his mind is the problem of food. All that is left to them is lembas and there is nothing for Gollum. Sam assumes that Frodo has not thought about this but Frodo offers to share a piece of lembas with Gollum, an offer that is greeted with disgust. Gollum will have nothing to do with Elves or anything associated with them.

Eventually Gollum solves his own problem. He is a forager, even a scavenger, and he is used to surviving on almost nothing. He will do as he has done for a very long time. He will live off the land even though there will be times when the land will have little to offer him, while longing, all the time, for fish. Apart from his all consuming desire for the Ring Gollum wants for almost nothing. When, at a later point, Sam overhears an inner debate between Gollum and Sméagol, Stinker and Slinker as he calls these two parts of this divided creature, he hears Gollum declare that if he could regain the Ring he would use it to “eat fish every day, three times a day, fresh from the sea”. That seems to be the limit of his ambition.

At this moment in their lives Frodo and Sam seem to want for little more. Life has been stripped down to its barest necessities. It is to keep on going from one day to the next, somehow to get to Mount Doom and, then?

Sam is pondering the question of finding enough food to finish the job. He also hopes that somehow there will be a future that lies beyond that. Sam’s heart lies in the Shire and he wants a “there and back again” story. Frodo does not share his hopes.

“If the One goes into the Fire, and we are at hand? I ask you, Sam, are we ever likely to need bread again? If we can nurse our limbs to bring us to Mount Doom, that is all we can do. More than I can, I begin to feel.”

This will always be a dividing point between Frodo and Sam. Sam will always hope and he will always worry. Rosie Cotton lies behind in the Shire and Sam means to marry her if she will have him. And he will worry about what he saw in Galadriel’s Mirror, about his father’s welfare and the digging up of Bagshot Row. Frodo, on the other hand has become a little more like Gollum but wants even less than he. He does not desire the Ring or anything that the Ring could give him. He only feels its burden and longs to be free of it, while the Ring slowly but inexorably takes possession of his mind until the time will come when the Ring will be all that he can see or perceive. If he can find food then it will be to get him to Orodruin. He will take little pleasure in it.

Sam is deeply moved by what he sees as Frodo’s nobility of character, his self-sacrifice for the great cause but I am glad that Sam has smaller ambitions. As he lay dying after the Battle of the Five Armies Thorin Oakenshield said to Bilbo, “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold it would be a merrier world”. Sam has the same heart as Bilbo. He too values food and cheer and song and a happy domestic life and he wants this for all his fellows and especially for Frodo. He will keep on trying to find a way home after doing the job.

“All You Wish is to See It and Touch It, If You Can, Though You Know It Would Drive You Mad.” Gollum Swears To Serve The Master of The Ring.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 803-809

What are Frodo and Sam to do with Gollum? They know that he will not stop following them and that he means to do them harm. Frodo, in particular, knows that it is the Ring that draws him, knows it in a way that Sam cannot possibly know, because he knows that the Ring has the same power over him and that this power grows each and every day.

“One Ring to rule them all and in the Darkness bind them.”

Sam suspects that Gollum is in league with the Enemy in some way, that he has been given a job to do, to find the Ring and to bring it to Barad-dûr. Sam believes that at some point he will betray them so should they kill him? Frodo knows that they might kill Gollum in self-defence, if Gollum attacked them, but not in cold blood, in an execution, and reluctantly Sam agrees.

Eventually, after Gollum attempts to escape, they tie the elven rope around his ankle, but this causes Gollum to scream in pain. It is the connection with Elves that Gollum cannot bear, the connection with light. At last Frodo says that he will not take the rope from Gollum’s ankle unless Gollum makes a promise that can be trusted.

It is the word, on, that Frodo immediately understands.

“No! not on it,”said Frodo, looking down on him with stern pity. “All you wish is to see if and touch it, if you can, though you know it would drive you mad. Not om it. Swear by it, if you will. For you know where it is. Yes, you know, Sméagol. It is before you.”

At this moment Sam begins to see something in Frodo that he has not seen before. Until this time Sam has served Frodo because he loves him. He loves Frodo’s gentleness but he does not think that Frodo is especially strong or tough. Now, to his surprise, he sees Frodo speak with an authority that he did not know that Frodo possesses, the kind of authority that requires obedience. And he sees Frodo almost grow in stature before him while Gollum shrinks. Gollum senses this too.

“We promises, yes I promise!” said Gollum. “I will serve the master of the Precious.”

This is a critical moment in the story. Until now Gollum has been the hunter and Frodo and Sam have been fugitives in the wild always trying to throw their pursuer off their scent, always trying to evade his grasp, but now Frodo, in particular, has become the master. Gollum is the prisoner and even, it would appear, a willing one. Frodo even tells him that they are going to Mordor and although Gollum is horrified he still promises to help them get there.

And it is a critical moment in another way. Until now Frodo and Sam have been lost. They know where they are trying to get to but they have had no idea how to get there. Now they have a guide. This alone is providential; an unexpected, even unwelcome, but a very necessary gift. Gollum will guide them across the Dead Marshes, a way that orcs fear to tread, a way that will bring them close to the borders of Mordor.

And the thing that binds them all together, at least for a brief time, is the very worst object in the world, the Ring of Power. The Ring gives Frodo an authority that he would not otherwise possess, an authority that he is beginning to understand and to use, and the Ring has a power over Gollum that he cannot ignore. For a time, at least, until he works out a way to break his promise, Gollum will obey that power and he will serve Frodo. And both Frodo and Gollum will resist Sauron with all the strength that they possess.

“We won’t!” Gollum cries into the darkness at one point. “Not for you.” Not for Sauron. Through all the years of torture and intimidation Sauron was never able to break Gollum’s will. It is the Ring, and not Sauron, that has power over Gollum and it is this tiny space of freedom that will make all the difference. Gollum will be a faithful guide and a capable one and Frodo knows this. Of course, all the time, Gollum will be thinking of ways in which he will be able to break Frodo’s trust but there is one way that Gollum will never think of, and that is to betray Frodo, and the Ring, to Sauron. In this way Gollum and Frodo have forged the strongest alliance possible. And so the words that Gandalf spoke to Frodo in Bag End are already beginning to prove true.

“My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that time comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many- yours not least.”

“Well, Master, We’re in a Fix and No Mistake.” Some Thoughts on Hobbits and Heroes.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) p. 787

I spent a pleasant evening with a friend in a pub recently (Thanks, Ben!) talking about The Lord of the Rings and we got to thinking about heroes and, more specifically, the kind of heroes that Tolkien’s hobbits are. We compared them to superheroes in, say, a Marvel comic or film. Now I was an avid reader of those comics as a boy and I am happy to say this with pride now with C.S Lewis’s thought in mind that he would rather see a boy reading a comic with pleasure than a classic novel because he thought he had to. I also fell in love with Narnia so I hope that would have pleased him too. I was fascinated by the characters of the heroes and their inner struggles just as much as their triumphs over evil. I was just starting to become aware of my own struggles and they gave me some comfort and the thought that I might be a hero too.

But we agreed that Tolkien created a different kind of hero in Frodo and Sam. In fact, as Tom Shippey has shown, he created the kind of hero that could only have been created in a 20th century story, the kind that would have experienced industrial warfare, as Tolkien and Lewis did on the Western Front of the First World War of 1914-18. And while in a Marvel story the hero comes to save the day while the rest of us run for cover or stand helplessly with our hands raised over our heads as the forces of evil destroy our city around us, Tolkien’s hobbits are more like us.

Yesterday I listened, deeply moved, to a news report that the French military attaché to the United Kingdom unexpectedly arrived at the hundredth birthday celebration of a veteran of the Normandy landings of June 1944 and presented him with France’s highest honour, the Legion d’honneur. I was moved by this because my father took part in those landings and, had he lived, would recently have celebrated his own hundredth birthday. I felt that my Dad was being honoured too. The old gentleman was interviewed on the radio and, speaking with admirable clarity, said that he did not feel that he deserved the award because, as he put it, “I was just there”. I think my father would have said the same thing. In fact the only story that he ever told us of the experience was that as he was going ashore on the Normandy beaches in his American built landing craft he noted that it had an ice-cream maker fitted and wondered what it was doing there. If any of my American readers know the answer please let me know in the comments below.

But that “I was just there” remark typifies Tom Shippey’s argument about the “heroes” of 20th century warfare. Whereas Lancelot, riding to rescue Guinevere from her captors, is a hero of romance, the veterans of the Normandy landings of 1944 were “just there”, doing their duty and trying to stay alive.

Tolkien gives us both kind of heroes in his story though he hardly ever used the word. In Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, following the orcs of Isengard across the plains of Rohan in the hope of freeing Merry and Pippin from their captivity we have the kind of hero that Sir Thomas Malory would have recognised in his Morte D’Arthur. In Frodo and Sam trying to find a way down from the Emyn Muil to the livid marshes below we have something quite different. They are more like the men going ashore on the Normandy beaches in 1944. They just keep going. Or, at least, they try to.

But Frodo and Sam give a dignity to every person who has ever just kept on going, trying their best to do whatever good they can in their lives. I have had conversations with my daughters about this recently as they have looked in horror at evils in the world and have wondered what can be done. I have thought about it in reference to my own life as I have asked myself the question, “What use have I been?” And like Frodo and Sam, I won’t pretend that my story has been like Aragorn’s or Lancelot’s although there was a time when I wanted to be like that, but, whether I ever write it down or not, I will try to create my own Red Book in my head of what I have tried to do, of how I have tried to answer Gandalf’s principle that all any of us can do is “to decide what to do with the time that is given us”.

And not to give up.

“Now May I Make a Right Choice, and Change The Evil Fate of This Unhappy Day.” Aragorn Chooses to Follow the Orcs of Isengard.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 544-546

Boromir has passed over Rauros in the elven boat in which Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli have laid him, and by virtue of the skill learned by Elves over thousands of years in which craft and nature have become seamlessly woven together the boat is not dashed to pieces by the force of water and of rock nor have its contents been spilled into the river. The three companions have done their duty to their comrade and now they may turn their attention to their duty to the hobbits.

Already they know that Merry and Pippin have been taken by the Uruk-hai, the orcs of Isengard, back towards their fortress across the plains of Rohan and soon it becomes clear what has become of Frodo and Sam.

“So much at least is now clear,” said Legolas: “Frodo is no longer on this side of the River: only he can have taken the boat. And Sam is with him; only he can have taken his pack.”

The companions have a choice. Either they can follow Frodo, as Sam has done, and guide him to Mordor, or they can follow Merry and Pippin and their orc captors towards Isengard. Neither path holds out much hope for them. In doing their duty to Boromir they have lost many hours.

At last Aragorn makes his choice.

“Let me think!” said Aragorn. “And now may I make a right choice, and change the evil fate of this unhappy day!” He stood silent for a moment. “I will follow the Orcs,” he said at last. “I would have guided Frodo to Mordor and gone with him to the end; but if I seek him now in the wilderness, I must abandon the captives to torment and death. My heart speaks clearly at last: the fate of the Bearer is in my hands no longer. The Company has played its part. Yet we that remain cannot abandon our companions while we have strength left.”

Aragorn speaks of the fate of the day. He is seeking after the biggest story that he can find and tell about all that has befallen the Fellowship since it began. The day began with a belief among them all that they would make a decision together and follow it together. Only Boromir had made it clear from the beginning that he would travel on to Minas Tirith whatever choice was made by the others. Frodo is becoming ever more certain that he must make the journey alone to Mordor but he is afraid to tell the others, afraid too of the journey itself. But now the possibility that the Fellowship might make a decision together has been made impossible. In trying to take the Ring from Frodo Boromir has set in motion a chain of events that means that the Fellowship can never take one course of action together again. Frodo and Sam have crossed the Anduin together. Boromir has died defending Merry and Pippin from the Uruk-hai of Isengard and the young hobbits have been taken prisoner.

Frodo has made a free choice and Sam has gone with him. Merry and Pippin are prisoners. And so Aragorn must honour both Frodo’s freedom and the young hobbits’ captivity. He will not guide Frodo to Mordor. That necessary task will be undertaken by the most unlikely of people, by one who seeks to kill him and to regain the Ring. The young hobbits will regain their freedom in the confusion of battle. The three hunters will not find them again until they meet amidst the ruin of Isengard. No choice that Aragorn will take this day will lead to either course of events and yet he must still choose.

I spoke of the fate of the day, of the task of seeking the biggest story that can be found. The story that Aragorn chooses is that of freeing the captives or dying in the attempt. He knows that it is the dying that is most likely and that, like Boromir, he will probably fall in hopeless defence of two hobbits who probably should not have come with them in the first place but that in choosing this story he opens the possibility that something greater, more wonderful, might happen. And at the very least he will do something worthy of a song.

“I Only Said I Think I Shall Come.” Life With and Without Gandalf.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) p.266

I have long been drawn to the figures of old men in literature and have wanted to spend time in their company. As a small boy I read and re-read T.H White’s The Once and Future King and the scene that gave me the greatest pleasure was that in which the Wart (the young King Arthur) comes across Merlin in a clearing in the Forest Sauvage for the very first time and you just know that life is never going to be the same again and it is going to be good. Then a few years later I settled down with Frodo by the open window of his study to smoke a pipe with Gandalf and was content. Years later I read the Harry Potter stories to my daughters and found that the attraction had not gone. I was never happier than in the scenes with Albus Dumbledore and when there seemed to be some distance between Harry and Dumbledore I felt an old familiar ache and longing inside. And perhaps one of the most significant and vivid dreams in my life ended, almost uniquely, in perfect resolution when I knelt before an old man who I identified as the Pope in order to receive his blessing. I could even smell the fragrance in the air at that moment of perfect peace and harmony.

I am not sure that I ever quite met the elder that I was looking for and at the age that I have now reached the opportunity to do so is receding but the longing has not gone. It’s just that I begin to realise that I am going to have to find this father within myself and not in a figure that I am likely to meet. Maybe that is the meaning of my dream. A dream that I think was given for my whole life and not just for a moment within it.

During these weeks of the summer I have been writing about some bigger themes in The Lord of the Rings before turning to The Two Towers in the autumn and I have begun to think about both the presence and the absence of Gandalf in the story. My readers may remember that I wrote a piece entitled “We Must Do Without Hope” back on December 11th 2021 https://stephencwinter.com/2021/12/11/we-must-do-without-hope-the-company-go-on-after-the-fall-of-gandalf/ as Aragorn takes command of the Company after the catastrophe of the fall of Gandalf in Moria. These words are almost a title for the early chapters of The Two Towers as Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli pursue Merry and Pippin and their orc captors across the plains of Rohan towards the Forest of Fangorn. Again and again Aragorn reflects both upon hope and its absence. Surely he knows that to free the young hobbits is a hopeless task against so numerous a foe, as Éomer tries to convince him, but he continues with grim resolution until at last in the forest he meets Gandalf once more. From that moment onwards he is a man transformed.

And we see the same reaction from Frodo when Gandalf announces to the hobbits, “I think I shall come with you.” Indeed, Tolkien writes, “So great was Frodo’s delight at this announcement that Gandalf left the windowsill, where he had been sitting, and took off his hat and bowed. ‘I only said I think I shall come. Do not count on anything yet.'”

Gandalf’s presence is so important that it gives huge confidence, energy and hope to all around him. When the Company are attacked by wargs near the western gate of Moria Sam is given hope as he says, “Whatever may be in store for old Gandalf, I’ll wager it isn’t a wolf’s belly.”

And then comes the moment when Gandalf falls at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm and for a time at least all hope is gone. Eventually Gandalf is restored to the Fellowship, for all at least except two. For Frodo and Sam have to go on alone step by step to the Cracks of Doom bearing the burden of the Ring and without even the sustaining thought that Gandalf is out there somewhere fighting on their behalf. It is worth pondering the fact that they, alone among their fellows, achieve their quest entirely without this source of strength and of hope. They know the loneliness of being a grown up and what strength they are able to find must be found within.

“Down Into The Land of Shadow.” Tolkien’s Ending of The Fellowship of the Ring.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp.397-398

Those who came to know The Lord of the Rings through the films that were made some twenty years ago by Peter Jackson will have been surprised when they first read Tolkien’s own ending to the first volume of his trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring. Tolkien gives us no battles, no brave self-sacrifice from Merry and Pippin offering themselves to the orcs so that Frodo can escape, no farewell by Aragorn to Frodo, and no heroic death of Boromir. That last will take place off stage at the beginning of The Two Towers. Instead he gives us this…

“So Frodo and Sam set off on the last stage of the Quest together. Frodo paddled away from the shore and the River bore them swiftly away, down the western arm, and past the frowning cliffs of Tol Brandir”

Frodo and Sam struggle to get past the current of the river that seeks to drag them over the mighty falls and so at last make their way to the east bank, and then…

“At length they came to land again upon the southern slopes of Amon Lhaw. There they found a shelving shore, and they drew the boat out high above the water, and hid it as well as they could behind a great boulder. Then shouldering their burdens, they set off, seeking a path that would bring them over the grey hills of the Emyn Muil, and down into the Land of Shadow.”

We can understand why Peter Jackson decided to end his first film differently and I, alongside the packed theatre audience who witnessed the film, was glad to stand and applaud it. It was a masterpiece in its own right and I could not wait for the release of The Two Towers which is what Jackson had intended.

But Tolkien had his reasons for ending this first part of his great story in this way and if I were to try to create the scene as I think Tolkien intended us to see it I would slowly draw the camera back from Frodo and Sam as they set off on their journey until all we could see was two small figures set against a vast and empty wasteland.

There is an old and deeply poignant prayer of the Breton people of France whose ancient language is related to Welsh, a tongue that Tolkien loved. It simply states that “O God, thy sea is so great and my boat is so small.” I have known it for some time through a collection of prayers from the Celtic tradition of which the Breton tongue is a part but discovered while preparing this blog post that an American admiral gave a small plaque to President John Kennedy, a fellow sailor, with this prayer inscribed upon it. The point of the prayer, as President Kennedy received it, was to remind us of our smallness against the vastness of the universe in which we are set. Kennedy kept the plaque on his desk in the Oval Office throughout his term of office to teach him humility. Presidents need such reminders in a way that Breton fisher folk do not. For them, and for all the “little” people of the earth, it is enough that they must set out each day into a world that is so much bigger than they are, and Tolkien intends us to see Frodo and Sam among such people. Their journey is not heroic in the sense that it is a conquest of the world although Elrond was right to compare Frodo to the great heroic figures of the First Age like Hurin and Beren, it is heroic in the sense that ordinary life is heroic. Ordinary folk shoulder their burdens and set out, seeking a path through a life that is so much bigger than they are. Frodo and Sam know that what they seek to do is far too big a task for people like them but they do it anyway because it is a task that they have been given to do.

Surely Tolkien drew here upon his memories of the ordinary soldiers on the Western Front in the First World War who did their job against overwhelming odds and did not see their lives as wasted because doing their job was what life was all about. It reminds me of a conversation I once had with a woman whose husband had worked all his life in a job that he hated in order to feed his family and did it with pride so that the high point of his week was to cook breakfast on a Sunday morning and to share it with them all. That is the kind of heroism that Frodo and Sam represent.

“It’s No Good Trying to Escape You.” Frodo and Sam Set Off For Mordor Together.

/ stephencwinter / 6 Comments

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 395-398

Even though all the Fellowship recognise the wisdom of Sam’s words when he spoke of how Frodo was determined to go alone to Mordor, and that the time that he was taking was not to make up his mind about the right course of action but to find the courage to begin, the debate is not at an end. Merry and Pippin, at least, are still certain that they all should all go to Minas Tirith. It is only when Boromir arrives that the story is able to move on.

‘”Where have you been, Boromir?” asked Aragorn. “Have you seen Frodo?”‘

Boromir is not ready yet to tell his story, to admit his failure, but he says enough to throw the rest of the Company into panic and despite Aragorn’s efforts to prevent them Merry and Pippin run off in one direction, Legolas and Gimli in another and Sam in another yet.

“Boromir! I do not know what part you have played in this mischief, but help now! Go after those two young hobbits, and guard them at the least, even if you cannot find Frodo.”

And so Aragorn runs after Sam while Boromir makes his final journey in search of redemption. For he will fall in battle while doing as Aragorn had commanded, willingly laying down his life for the hobbits, willingly paying with his life for his attempt to seize the Ring from Frodo by force.

Once again it is Sam, who is closest to the mind and heart of Frodo, who works out what is really going on. After Aragorn catches and passes him, making his way up to Amon Hen, Sam realises that Frodo is making his way to the boats using the invisibility that the Ring gives him, and that it is Frodo’s intention to escape them all. Desperately, Sam makes his way towards the place to where the boats are moored, caring nothing now for anything, not even for his own life, as long as he can find Frodo. Even his fear of water will not stop him until the moment comes when he fears that he will drown.

“Save me, Mr. Frodo!” gasped Sam. “I’m drownded. I can’t see your hand.”

At last Frodo gets them all safe back to shore but he is furious, convinced that Sam has come to do what he feared the most, to prevent him from going to Mordor. It is only when he realises that Sam wants to help him do what he planned that he relaxes at last and is actually pleased that Sam has caught him.

“So all my plan is spoilt!” said Frodo. “It’s no good trying to escape you. But I’m glad, Sam. I cannot tell you how glad. Come along! It is plain that we were meant to go together. We will go, and may the others find a safe road! Strider will look after them. I don’t suppose we shall see them again.”

So it is Boromir who sends each member of the Fellowship towards the place that they must go. Merry and Pippin will be carried by the Uruk-hai of Isengard just in time to meet Treebeard who has made a rare visit to a hill on the eastern border of Fangorn Forest. Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas, while in the process of a vain pursuit of the young hobbits, will arrive in Fangorn just in time to meet Gandalf and so rouse Rohan and their king from deadly slumber to great deeds. And Frodo and Sam will go step by step towards Mordor and the destruction of the Ring.

Frodo is sure that he is going to his death but he is at peace with his choice. All that he has to do is to do his duty. But Sam is not so sure that they are going to die. Nothing will keep him from staying with Frodo right to the very end but he has not forgotten the Shire and his heart lies there. Will he see the others again?

“We may, Mr. Frodo. We may. ”